WATCH: Will Wade’s Postgame Press Conference After McNeese St.’s 62-76 loss to Purdue in the 2nd Rd (with transcript)

NC State’s NEW Head Men’s Basketball Coach met with the media for his postgame press conference after McNeese St. lost 62-76 to Purdue in the 2nd Round of the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. You can watch the video ABOVE, and read the transcript BELOW.

Purdue was more aggressive from the start.

We couldn’t get stops, they had us spread out. We were switching too low and they made us pay for it. We weren’t as crisp as we were on Thursday from the start of the game, and they had a lot to do with that. They were more aggressive and that’s why they out rebounded us. That’s why they shot a bunch more free throws than we did.

They were just tougher and more aggressive than we were, and I thought we were that way on Thursday. We couldn’t carry that over.

We couldn’t fill our tanks back up quick enough to bring that again. But, they’re a great team. Really well coached.

Great players. (Braden) Smith is great. I thought we did a good job in the second half kind of speeding him up.

They shot it well from three. All the stuff you need to make an upset, we just couldn’t do. We didn’t make free throws.

We didn’t make enough threes. We were able to survive that the other day, but we just couldn’t overcome it today.

But really proud of our guys. Proud of our season. Just proud of everybody.

On a personal note, before you got to McNeese, were you a believer in second chances? Now, having gotten one and succeeding in it, what does that kind of feel like for you?

I’m a believer in second chances. A lot of the people in our program are second chances. Myself, the players, that’s kind of why we’re close.

We’ve got a lot of stuff that bonds us together. So, I’m a big believer in it. Hopefully we did right by the people who gave us the second chance.

Just obviously very emotional walking off the court and right now as well. Just talk about these past two years and especially this season, this week.

I mean, incredible. Today’s tough, but, I mean, we went 40-2 in the league.

I don’t care what league you’re in, that’s hard to do. 58-11 in two years. That’s these guys, man.

That’s these guys. And to be able to win a game was…it just took so much out of us. We didn’t have the pop today.

I’m not making excuses because Purdue had a lot of pop and they played as well, but, just to see our guys come together, see our guys represent the school, represent our area so well has just been phenomenal. But it’s been – I mean, 40-2 in the league is tough to do.

Never lost a home game in the league. Great fans. Shoot, most of the time you lose in a tournament, fans are ready to fire you.

Our people were applauding us. So, just awesome.

Will, what are the next steps with North Carolina State?

I’ll worry about that tomorrow.

I mean, look, I’m an honest guy, but today, I want to put a bow on everything at McNeese if we can. That’ll be up to whatever else happens, but right now, I want to worry about McNeese. I’m not trying to give you some canned answer, but this is about our players and McNeese right now.

We’re not flying back until tomorrow morning, so, we’ll enjoy this here, and then when we get back, we’ll figure out next steps.

But I do want to say, whatever happens, our program at McNeese is in great shape. We have tremendous leadership.

We’re not dumb. We have a plan to keep this program rolling, whoever’s at the helm, and this program is going to keep moving in the right direction. This program is going to keep winning, and I really believe we’re just getting started.

Coach, we’ve talked a lot about this place. How much has the town meant to you, not the basketball, but the town? But also, how much will you always be a part of the basketball program?

Well, hopefully I’ll be a part of the program. You know, the town, everybody.

I mean, just incredible, incredible. I think I needed somewhere that was going to embrace me, and the town needed somebody to embrace them, and it just worked.

I can’t explain how. I guess the winning helps, but it worked.

Just unforgettable. The town embraced our players. Most of you guys hadn’t been there, but our players are all over billboards all over town.

I mean, it’s like a little NBA team in our town. It’s crazy how the town has embraced our guys, and it’s changed our university.

It’s going to change our university. It’s changed it already, and it’s going to continue to do that.

But the program, we’ve got great leadership. The program’s in good hands. It’s going to keep moving forward.

Hopefully when they remember us, we’re the people that kind of got it kick-started. You think about it, we were one of the 30 worst teams in the country, and now we’re talking about in the Round of 32. It’s a pretty good job by a lot of people to do that in two years, most importantly our players.

Coach, if you could just talk about specifically Christian Shumate and Javohn Garcia, what they mean to you personally and what they mean to the McNeese State program.

I mean, it’s hard to have perspective on all that right now, but look, Shu was here four years through some of the…he’s been through the lowest of the lows and the highest of the highs. He’s just incredible. He believed in us and came back.

Garcia’s been just so steady for the two years with us, and hopefully he’s going to get a third. We’ve got to look at how all the ruling works with the JUCO stuff. I believe he’s in line for another year. I’m hopeful he’s in line for another year, but we’ve got to look at all that and help him.

But, Shu’s everything you want. He transferred in from Tulsa after his Freshman year, but how many kids stay at the same school for four years now? That’s a rare deal. Him and Garcia and (Sincere) Parker came in on the second year, but him and Garcia believed in us when there wasn’t a whole lot to believe in. We were selling a vision that, ‘Hey, this is what we can do. This is what we can be.’

But, if you listened to us and you didn’t know us, you’d think, ‘Man, those guys are morons,’ like all y’all thought when I got up here and said we were going to win 23 games.

Garcia and Shumate, man, they believed in us when there was no proof of concept. It was a little easier for some of the other guys to jump on board, but there was no proof of concept when they jumped on board and believed in us, so just forever appreciative of those guys, and I think our community is certainly appreciative of them as well.